2 Cranston councilmen say city police retaliated because of their police contract votes by ticketing cars in their wards

CRANSTON — Police Chief Marco Palombo Jr. and other officers basked in applause Monday night as the chief accepted an award signifying the department had been accredited.The forum was the City Council...

CRANSTON — Police Chief Marco Palombo Jr. and other officers basked in applause Monday night as the chief accepted an award signifying the department had been accredited.

The forum was the City Council meeting at City Hall. Warwick Police Chief Stephen McCartney and Christine A. Crocker, executive director of the Rhode Island Police Accreditation Commission, were on hand.

Accreditation means a police agency adheres to the best practices in law enforcement and has the necessary management, infrastructure and equipment.

About an hour and a half later, after the officers had left, the police were accused of misconduct.

Palombo’s department is now investigating an allegation that officers last month unleashed a small blizzard of parking tickets in order to strike back at two council members who opposed a new police labor contract.

Mayor Allan W. Fung issued a statement Tuesday that he does not condone intimidating behavior by city employees. But he stopped short of accepting the allegation as true.

“Once my administration became aware of the situation, we contacted the [police], who then initiated an investigation,” Fung said.

“If there is anything untoward found as a result of this investigation, I would follow up with appropriate discipline. People will be held accountable.”

Councilmen Steven A. Stycos and Paul H. Archetto, armed with ticket statistics obtained through Fung’s office, have complained that their wards were blanketed with the tickets the day after they voted against the proposed contract.

The mayor negotiated the contract with the police labor union for 2012-2016, but the council's Finance Committee voted Nov. 14 to reject the tentative agreement. The vote came at the end of a meeting, and a handful of obviously peeved police officers promptly left the council chambers.

The next day, statistics show, Stycos’ Ward 1 was hit with 66 tickets, and Archetto’s Ward 3, with 62 tickets. There were only 9 tickets issued throughout the rest of the city during the same span.

In September, there were 48 tickets issued citywide, and in October, 74.

The incident was made public at Monday’s council meeting by Stycos and Archetto, who alleged it was retaliation for their no votes on the labor agreement.

Stycos distributed copies to his colleagues of the statistics and two anonymous letters, purportedly from police officers, naming a particular police supervisor for having ordered the ticket blitz.

He called it an “outrageous … attempt to intimidate me directly” and, indirectly, all council members. And he said the message was clear: “Don’t mess with the Police Department, because they’ll mess with you.”

“We need to know if the chief was involved. We need to know if the mayor’s office was involved,” Stycos said. He called for the administration to report to the council on the matter at the council’s January meeting.

Besides determining who ordered the blitz, Stycos and Archetto want the mayor to have the cost of the tickets refunded to their recipients and to send those ticketed a letter of explanation and apology.

Council members were silent after the revelation at the Monday meeting, except for Councilwoman Sarah Kales Lee, who said, “I just find it very difficult to feel that the police are being fair and just.”

In an emailed response to questions, Fung denied that his office or Palombo were involved in the alleged retaliation. Palombo could not be reached.

Asked if the police can be trusted to investigate themselves, Fung said the department has a history of holding accountable wrongdoers of various ranks and imposing penalties as stiff as firing.

Capt. Stephen Antonucci, president of the police union, declined comment on the blitz, saying that it would be imprudent in light of the internal police investigation. He was among the irked officers at the Nov. 14 meeting.

Most of the tickets, according to Stycos, were for illegal overnight parking. He found the sudden flurry of tickets remarkable, he said, because he has had trouble in the past persuading the police to ticket for overnight parking in response to constituent complaints.

Antonucci told him at a Democratic Party fundraiser last year, he recalled, that officers think the $50 tickets are pricey and are reluctant to write them.

Neither Stycos nor Archetto know if the tickets in their wards were for valid offenses. It is beside the point, Archetto said, because the tickets were the product of selective enforcement. They should be dismissed and refunded, he said.

Fung said he won’t agree to a refund because the ticketed motor vehicles were parked illegally. He did not say whether he will consider a public letter of explanation and apology.

Responding to Stycos’ request for a report by the mayor’s office in January, Fung replied that he does not know if he will be ready by then.

“The investigation will not be rushed to comply with arbitrary political deadlines,” Fung said. The mayor is Republican and the nine-member council has seven Democrats, including Stycos and Archetto, and two Republicans.